Star Wars The Last Jedi Review

While you’re watching the movie you’ll go……. “Wow, amazing, I can’t believe that just happened”

After you’re done with the movie and you start thinking back, you’ll go……. “Wait, why end it like that, something’s missing, that didn’t end right, they didn’t answer my questions from The Force Awakens properly”

The Plot

In Lucasfilm’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi, the Skywalker saga continues as the heroes of The Force Awakens join the galactic legends in an epic adventure that unlocks age-old mysteries of the Force and shocking revelations of the past.

Yup that’s how I’m feeling right now. I was wowed by so many climatic sequences during The Last Jedi but I left the cinema feeling like so many continuity plots set up in The Force Awakens were pretty much ignored.

Let’s talk about the good parts first

Poe remains my favourite new character and we see him sort of evolve from pilot to leader. Finn who had so much depth in the first movie seems to be just passing through in this second one. I don’t feel an evolution of his character except when he faced off with Captain Phasma, which was one of the best sequences.

Rose Tica played by Kelly Marie Tran was a nice addition to the cast. Her Significant role shows how much this new trilogy is moving from the old characters to fresh new personalities.

Visually it is fantastic and Rian Johnson does and amazing job building up to all the mini climaxes.

And here are the areas that irritated me

Rey is on her journey trying to convince Luke Skywalker to return with her to the resistance and based on The Force Awakens, her parentage is a big question. This is handled without care and almost as if it didn’t matter.

She’s also trying to understand her place in this fight and we see a dynamic between her and Kylo Ren aka Ben Solo which I thought was one of the bright sparks of the film. However that spark builds up very nicely but comes to nothing for me.

Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo played by Laura Dern was the biggest plot hole for me. While I loved watching her with that purple hair on screen, all her character needed to do was to answer a simple question that Poe (her captain) asked her and more than half of the Resistance’s problems would not have occurred. Considering the size of the military set up, Holdo’s lack of communication made no sense at all. I mean seriously….you forcing a problem for the Resistance so that there can be a movie?

My biggest issue is the handling of Luke Skywalker. His importance is so up played in The Force Awakens and most of The Last Jedi but I felt it come to nothing. It was almost as if Director Rian Johnson had no care for the character and it was the same with General Leia. Carrie Fisher has now passed on and obviously her character arc needs to be wrapped up but………..it isn’t. So how are they going to handle Episode 9? This irritates me more than the death of Han Solo by the way…..at least that made sense in 2015, now it’s like…..all for what?

Don’t get me wrong. The Last Jedi is a great movie and it’s a good attempt at taking the franchise forward. But at the end, it felt like they haven’t decided how this trilogy is going to end.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars (I was expecting a 4.5 or even 5…..I’m being as nice as I can)

An unexpected team up and Luke getting his bad ass moment is reason enough for you to watch the film but the anti climatic ending made it feel like a satisfying dinner with a so so dessert.

Pretty sure people will think I’m an idiot for being so harsh on The Last Jedi but go take it out on those Justice League haters.